There are two categories of Thai restaurants, nowadays: the lounge-y kind, with black clad petite waiters and waitresses, ambient music with a techno beat, sleek furniture. The traditional kind, also known as kitschy, with wooden sculptures, convoluted gilded frames hanging on the walls, and waiters outfitted in bright pink or electric blue silks. In the first category, one could find the Castro Thai Chef, the Mission Baku. In the latter, Surya, Thep Phanom, or Manora. Such a chiasm, such a generational disrepancy calls for SFist's Food Face-Off #5: Battle Thai.

In the lounge category: Osha Thai Noodle, a two year old place in the Mission, which we'll talk about today; in the classic category: you'll have to wait until next week. Osha has two other outposts, downtown and in SOMA.